FedCircuitBlog

The Federal Circuit issued a nonprecedential order in a veterans case late yesterday. This morning, the court issued a pair of Rule 36 judgments. Here is the text of the order and links to the Rule 36 judgments.

Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit. In one of the two cases in which the court has granted en banc hearings, the National Organization of Veterans Advocates filed a reply brief. In cases with pending petitions for en banc consideration, highlights include responses to two petitions raising issues related to patent eligibility and inventorship, and a voluntary withdrawal of a petition related to venue.

Guest post by Ron D. Katznelson, Ph.D.

The Transitional Program for Covered Business Method Patent Review (CBMR) was enacted in § 18 of the America Invents Act (AIA) for reviewing issued Covered Business Method (CBM) patents – patents that claim “a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service.”[1] The AIA also set a sunset expiration date for CBMR on September 16, 2020.[2] For the reasons explained below, CBMR should expire this week as intended and enacted in the AIA. As further explained below, those who wish to challenge CBM patents after that date, can effectively do so using any of the three alternative administrative proceedings at the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) that remain available with no sunset expiration, or by federal court action.

This morning the Federal Circuit issued one precedential opinion in an appeal from an arbitrator’s decision in an employment case, one nonprecedential opinion in a patent case, and one nonprecedential order granting a petition for a writ of mandamus. Here are the introductions to the opinions and the text from the order.

Guest post by Saurabh Vishnubhakat

As the Transitional Program for Covered Business Method (“CBM”) Review reaches its sunset date, it is useful to consider the design and implementation of this program and what lessons can be drawn from its eight-year run. Of particular interest are two unusual aspects of CBM review that have interacted with each other in instructive ways.

• Federal Circuit’s O’Malley: Supreme Court doesn’t have stomach for another 101 case – Federal Circuit Judge Kathleen O’Malley recently expressed concern over whether the Supreme Court will address patentable subject matter.
• An Argument for Mandatory Production of Limited Secondary Consideration Evidence by Petitioners in Inter Partes Reviews – Kristin Doyle advocates for the Patent Trial and Appeals Board to adopt the same approach to secondary consideration evidence as the Federal Circuit
• What We Learned About Biologics on Summer Vacation – Broad claim construction, licensing, and antitrust concerns have been among the trends for cases involving biologics at the Federal Circuit.

Here’s the latest.

In this article, we highlight two scholarly articles related to the Federal Circuit.

• Eli Lilly v. Teva: Generic Companies Infringe under Akamai IV in Case of Divided Infringement by Christopher M. Holman
• Design Patent Law’s Identity Crisis by Peter S. Menell and Ella Corren

Here are the details.

This morning, the Federal Circuit issued a pair of Rule 36 judgments. Here is a list with links to the orders.

On Friday the Federal Circuit and the Court of Federal Claims issued a joint order extending until October 19, 2020 the limitations on access to the Federal Courts Building set on June 26, 2020. The Federal Circuit also issued a notice with additional information related to the order. Here is the text from the court’s notice.

Here is this month’s update on activity in cases pending before panels of the Federal Circuit where the cases involve at least one amicus brief. We keep track of these patent cases in the “Other Cases” section of our blog. Today, with respect to these cases we highlight two dispositions, three new cases that attracted amicus briefs, two recent oral arguments, and one upcoming oral argument.